WASHINGTON — Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan is retiring this month after 30 years with the agency. The retirement is effective Feb. 22, the agency said. His replacement hasn’t been announced.

Sullivan joined the Secret Service in 1983 after three years as a special agent in the Inspector General’s Office at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He was appointed director in 2006.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano thanked Sullivan for his service in a statement Friday: “His commitment to keeping our country and its top officials safe is unparalleled, and his devotion to the mission of the Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security has been unwavering.”

Sullivan could have retired from government nearly 10 years ago but chose to stay on for what turned out to be a turbulent period for the service that included a South American prostitution scandal and a pair of White House gate crashers. Last year, in testimony before Congress, Sullivan apologized for the conduct of Secret Service employees caught in a prostitution scandal in Cartagena, Colombia, in April. Thirteen agents and officers were implicated, and eight of those Secret Service employees have been forced out of the agency. The Associated Press

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